


alone now

by Kyra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Australia, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Dentistry, Gen, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Motherhood, ennui
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-01
Updated: 2010-08-01
Packaged: 2018-01-04 08:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/pseuds/Kyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione's mother in Australia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	alone now

**Author's Note:**

> Set during book 7. Written for a [nothing_hip](http://nothing_hip.livejournal.com/) weekly challenge in 2010.

_I think we're alone now / There doesn't seem to be anyone around_ -Tiffany

 _He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing._  
 _Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up._  
 _Nobody is ever missing._ \- [John Berryman, Dream Song 29](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177879)

==

Australia's a wonder. So hot and new and different. She's in love right away. She can't think why they didn't move here years ago.

"Cheers," says Wendell, on their first night in their echoing new house, and they clink glasses.

*

The new practice gets up and running in next to no time. They absolutely lucked out -- a dentist three streets away with a thriving practice won the lottery just before they arrived, and turned his entire client list over to them before vanishing into early retirement. Their emigration mini-miracle she calls it.

There's still a lot to deal with though, getting used to a new office, new patients, new country. It takes a few months for her to start paying attention to the feeling. A little like deja vu, a little like knowing she's left something off her to do list. She shakes it off, and it comes back, and she shakes it off and starts taking a multivitamin.

"Maybe you're homesick," says Wendell, and she makes a noncommittal noise. She feels a strange nothing for England when she thinks about it, and something like repulsion when she toys with the idea of going back. Melbourne's everything she never knew she wanted. Perhaps she should start eating better.

*

There's a cheerful girl who works in the front office, Anthea. She chatters too much and Monica's tuned her out entirely as she checks the schedule for the day, but something catches her eye -- the way the girl's thick braid lies against the nape of her neck -- it makes her feel --

"Dr. Wilkins?" says Anthea.

*

They go out more; find new friends; rent bikes; eat late dinners at restaurants overlooking the city. She feels a little like she's coming alive, into existence. They're different people than they were in London. She thinks she likes it.

*

She finds herself staring at a little girl in the supermarket until the girl's mother pulls her away, shooting a look at Monica back over her shoulder. It's the third time it's happened this month. So strange; she's never been baby mad before. Perhaps it's a post-menopausal reaction -- some biological subconscious mourning process she's being put through.

*

She always thought she'd have children, she just never seemed to get around to it, and then it was too late, and it seemed like maybe it was for the best. She's got her career. And her marriage. She's thinking of joining a board.

*

She checks her dayplanner, the office schedule, Wendell's datebook, her dayplanner again, but there's nothing on September 19.

*

She's been thinking a lot about her mother lately, as though she's just died, as though it hasn't been, what, twelve years now. Little things she'd like to tell her. How much she'd like the view of the bay.

*

Maybe she's just lonely. Maybe that's all it is.

*

Summer comes roaring in and the date always startles her if she's not paying attention. It's hotter than anything and she packs away all her old clothes in the empty back bedroom, like sad ghosts of someone else's life. She wears dresses now and wakes with the sun. A little earlier every day. There's something in her dreams she's been trying to remember, but she can't catch hold of it at all.  
  



End file.
